Could another civil war come within the next 20-30 years?

[LBJ Revivalist]

Given the increasingly polarized political climate, not just in Congress but in the streets (with the Tea Party on one side, and the Occupy Wall Street People on the other), is there the possibility that it might erupt into violence? If not a full on civil war, perhaps violence on the scale of the late 1960s.

[opebo]

No, there will simply be more riots and crime, and much greater levels of police repression, with an ever-increasing percentage of the population in prison.  Such is the nature of the inequality and bad governance caused by neo-liberalism.

[LBJ Revivalist]

No, there will simply be more riots and crime, and much greater levels of police repression, with an ever-increasing percentage of the population in prison.  Such is the nature of the inequality and bad governance caused by neo-liberalism.

You keep mentioning neo-liberalism. Could you quantify what that means exactly?

[King]

Americans are too busy to fight in a war against themselves.

[opebo]

You keep mentioning neo-liberalism. Could you quantify what that means exactly?

here you go!

[LBJ Revivalist]

You keep mentioning neo-liberalism. Could you quantify what that means exactly?

here you go!

Ah ok you just mean Reaganism, basically. I agree that it's a bad thing.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

A civil war? No. 1960's violence? Yes.

[dead0man]

Not without a world wide economic collapse.

[I Am Feeblepizza.]

I can imagine there being 1960's type violence, but a civil war seems pretty far stretched.

[Wonkish1]

There is a lot of "historians" drawing parallels between how the public was acting in the 1850s and today. But quite frankly I just don't believe it. Its just too "out there."

Its actually more likely to happen in Europe than here, but even then its pretty "out there."

But then again if your country has had its access to credit cut off, your economy is crashing, and your government was forced into recaping the banks(so your deposits wouldn't disappear) at the expense of maybe as much as 70% of the public work force and 50% of public pension payments than maybe picking up a weapon isn't that much of a crazy decision as you watch your livelihood go down the drain(and of course in this case I'm referring to people that rely on the government for work or transfer payments).

[opebo]

But then again if your country has had its access to credit cut off, your economy is crashing, and your government was forced into recaping the banks(so your deposits wouldn't disappear) at the expense of maybe as much as 70% of the public work force and 50% of public pension payments than maybe picking up a weapon isn't that much of a crazy decision as you watch your livelihood go down the drain(and of course in this case I'm referring to people that rely on the government for work or transfer payments).

Of course it is always a reasonable position for the poor to die in armed struggle rather than live as they are, but somehow they almost never do it.  Such is the nature of the social animal - inured to abuse and shame.

[Lief 🗽]

Not without a world wide economic collapse.

That's hardly an impossibility...

[Link]

Given the increasingly polarized political climate, not just in Congress but in the streets (with the Tea Party on one side, and the Occupy Wall Street People on the other), is there the possibility that it might erupt into violence? If not a full on civil war, perhaps violence on the scale of the late 1960s.

Why do people keep pushing this false equivalency between the Tea Party and this OWS movement?  When there is even one Congressman in DC that ran on a OWS platform we can at most start talking about it.  I have no idea what the platform of OWS is or if they even have one.  Let the movement evolve and then critique it.

[phk]

No

[rwoy]

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[dead0man]

Not without a world wide economic collapse.

That's hardly an impossibility...

Sadly you are correct.

[angus]

You keep mentioning neo-liberalism. Could you quantify what that means exactly?

here you go!

Ah ok you just mean Reaganism, basically. I agree that it's a bad thing.

It's not quite that narrow.  The article to which opebo linked makes much of Reagan's trickle-down economic plan, but Bill Clinton was also a neo-Liberal.  And remember that neoliberalism was really the consensus of most of the world's leaders during the Clinton era.  That was a time, you may recall, of peace and prosperity for the U.S.  And there's a good chance that our next president will to subscribe to neo-Liberalism at least to some degree. 

The biggest criticism of neo-Liberalism is that it focuses too much on raising incomes and not enough on overall income equality.  This is a legitimate complaint, and income disparity is exactly what would lead to civil unrest, if it occurs. 

[Simfan34]

May 1968 in May 2018? Perhaps. Civil War? Absolutely not. Between who? Hipster militias versus the private armies of the billionaires?

[Meeker]

No one knows how to shoot a gun.

[© tweed]

You keep mentioning neo-liberalism. Could you quantify what that means exactly?

here you go!

Ah ok you just mean Reaganism, basically. I agree that it's a bad thing.

if you actually care, here is the best fragment of a definition I have come across:

Neoliberalism is not just classic lassiez-faire economic liberalism.  Neoliberalism may imply a model of human nature as competitive and rationally self-interested.  But in practise it does not assume that the behavior it values is 'natural'.  Rather, it sets out to institutionalise and incentivise the forms of behaviour that it sees as desirable.  It does not simply view individuals as rational entrepreneurial actors, per homo economicus, but actively seeks to refashion individuals along those lines with a range of political and institutional reforms.

and more pithily:

Neoliberalism is also a political logic in which market values are extended into all forms of political and social action - everything from the civil service to healthcare delivery could be reformed along market lines.


both of these are taken from The Meaning of David Cameron, written by a British self-proclaimed small-m marxist, member of the historically Leninist anti-Stalinist Socialist Workers Party.

[Insula Dei]

No one knows how to shoot a gun.

You could learn.

I'm all for an American Civil War along ideological breaking lines. The fascists will probably win, though.

[TJ in Oregon]

No one knows how to shoot a gun.

The conservatives do

[Dan the Roman]

No Civil War. But you will have weaker and more unstable governments. As the American electorate polarizes, building an electoral majority which does not involve completely selling out 70% of your voters will become impossible. That in turn will lead to alienation from politics.

In the short-run this will result in a golden age for politicians, likely those of the Right who are better equiped to take advantage of it, because a politically apathetic electorate will encourage them to increasingly try to rig the system for their own interests.

In the long-run however as politicians increasingly become solely self-serving and the system itself loses public support, the remaining institutions will begin to move to preserve the country. The critical movement will come when the politicians attempt to use the FBI/Military against their opponents, and find that the military decides to arrest both them and their intended targets.

Basically we are seeing the pattern Argentina had after 1916. The Obama years are 1926-1930. We are about to embark on the lost decade of corrupt "Conservative" rule of 1930-1943, and the whole thing will end with an unsuccessful military regime which in turn will be succeeded by an authoritarian populist who is ostensibly leftist but really in it for his own good.

[opebo]

The biggest criticism of neo-Liberalism is that it focuses too much on raising incomes

Strictly speaking neoliberalism, like liberalism before it, in fact only 'focuses' on one thing - owner-power.  What you are talking about is just propaganda for duping the stupid climbers that believe in 'progress'.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

If certain issues aren't addressed, civil war will come. The thing is we have time to deal with those issues, though for how much longer I don't know.